About
In 2011, the scale of famine taking grip in Somalia was just beginning to receive international attention. Although famine had been predicted almost a year earlier, it was not until July that famine was formally declared. Some 250,000 people died in the southern Somalia in the famine, which also displaced and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, many of whom sought refuge in Kenya.

On Tuesday 22 March 2016, the Rift Valley Forum will host the Nairobi launch of Famine in Somalia: Competing Imperatives, Collective Failures, 2011-12. This new book by Dan Maxwell and Nisar Majid is based on extensive research in Somalia and the region. It examines the causes of the famine, the trade-offs between competing policy priorities that led to it, the collective failure in response, and how those affected by it attempted to protect themselves and their livelihoods. Its analysis of the humanitarian response, includes the role played by Turkey, the Middle East, and Islamic charities worldwide — actors that had not previously been particularly visible in Somalia.